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Mount
Mounts are a much sought after form of transportation that players ride. They are Bind on Pickup creatures, machines (for gnomes) or skills/spells (warlocks and paladins) of Azeroth, Outland and whatever else (warlock case). Faster than walking, they come in several forms and the Burning Crusade also introduces new mounts with the ability to fly. Mounts were generally expensive in the past, but their prices have been reduced with the training to ride them increased to compensate. There are however some mounts which do not cost any gold or Marks of Honor, and will drop at very low rates from bosses in instances such as Stratholme, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Aman and Karazhan. Riding skills and abilities There are several types of mounts, all which correspond to one of the four different riding skills (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Artisan). mounts with a standard 60% movement increase and the training needed (usually for Apprentice Riding Skill) to ride them, can be first purchased at level 40. The character gets a to summon their mount. At level 60, mounts become available with a standard 100% movement increase, but need additional training (usually for Journeyman riding skill). The character gets an to summon their mount. At level 70, a player can learn the expert and artisan riding skills. The expert riding skill costs for training and for the mount. The artisan riding skill costs for training and for an epic flying mount. There is no way to gain a discount for the Expert and Artisan flying skill. The flying mounts are only usable with these skills and may only be summoned in Outland. Faction specific mounts Mounts by race Each race has their own mount and other races can ride these mounts if they have the appropriate faction and physical abilities, although before patch 1.1 the tauren had no mount, and learned an ability called Plainsrunning. Purchasing other mounts You can purchase your own race's mount regardless of your reputation provided you have enough gold stockpiled. However, to purchase another race's mount, your reputation with that race's faction must be "Exalted". Before Patch 1.12.1, it was required to get additional training to ride that race's mounts. After Patch 1.12.1, a universal riding skill was introduced that superseded all the mount-specific riding skills. Do keep in mind that mount vendors of cities owned by races other than your own will not show you what they have to offer unless you are exalted with them. There are two exceptions: * Tauren can only ride kodo beasts, wolves, talbuks, and the rare epic mounts as they are just too large to ride anything else. ** The is also ridable by tauren, but none of the other raptors are ridable. * Mechanostriders can only be ridden by gnomes and dwarves, as they are the only races small enough. Discount Faction discount Because of the large expense of mounts, and the way Blizzard implements the discount system, it will be often seen that people refer to prices which are 10% less than the prices listed here. There was only one discount available for training riding skill and purchasing mounts: *10% Honored faction discount. As of patch 2.3, Blizzard included discounts for all levels of a faction beyond neutral; the discounts are as follows: *5% Friendly faction discount. *10% Honored faction discount. *15% Revered faction discount. *20% Exalted faction discount. Class discount Technically not a discount, warlocks and paladins can get class-specific mounts (via quests). They are equivalent to standard mounts, but require a small amount of mana to summon. When the summoning spells are learned, the player will automatically receive the requisite riding skill to ride that particular mount. As of patch 2.1, when a warlock receives their felsteed, they automatically receive the Apprentice riding skill that applies to "normal" mounts. This is also true for paladins. * Warlock ** Felsteed at level 40. ** Dreadsteed at level 60. * Paladin (Alliance) ** Warhorse (blue and grey colored) at level 40. ** Charger at level 60. * Paladin (Horde) ** Warhorse (red and bronze colored) at level 40. ** Blood Charger at level 60. Class Abilities Druids and Shamans get shapeshift forms that increase their movement speed (not as much as a mount, but it is trainable at an earlier level), while Hunters get Aspects to boost their movement speed and that of their party. Rogues get a self-buff to temporarily increase movement speed. * Druid ** Aquatic Form from a Druid quest that starts at level 16. Aquatic form increases swim speed by 50%. ** With a Talent, Feral Swiftness, it is possible to increase Cat Form movement speed by 15% (one talent point) or 30% (two talent points). **Dash first obtained at level 24, increases Cat Form movement speed by 50% (rank 1 - level 24), 60% (rank 2 - level 46), and 70% (rank 3 - level 65) for 15 seconds. However, it does not stack with Feral Swiftness's movement speed increase. ** Travel Form at level 30. Movement speed increased by 40%. Can shapeshift in combat. Only usable outdoors. ** Flight Form at level 68. Usable in Outland-only. Movement speed (flying) increased by 60%. Instant cast, cannot shapeshift in combat. Learning the ability also gives Druids the Riding Skill 225 for free. Requires Riding skill 150 to learn. ** Swift Flight Form at level 70. Usable in Outland-only. Movement speed (flying) increased by 280%. Instant cast, cannot shapeshift in combat. Learning the ability requires the Riding Skill 300. * Shaman ** Ghost Wolf at level 20. Movement speed increased by 40%. Only usable outdoors. * Hunter ** Aspect of the Cheetah at level 20. Movement speed increased by 30%. Able to boost to 38% through talent spending. ** Aspect of the Pack at level 40. Movement speed of the party increased by 30%. Able to boost to 38% through talent spending. *Rogue **Sprint at level 10. Movement speed is increased by 50% for 15 seconds (rank 1 – level 10), 60% for 15 seconds (rank 2 – level 34), and 70% for 15 seconds (rank 3 – level 58). Sprint can also have a 50%/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects via Improved Sprint in the Combat (Changed in a patch) talent tree. *Paladin **Crusader Aura at level 62. Movement speed while mounted is increased by 20% this does not stack with anything else which increases mount speed such as , , or . Mounts tables Rare ground mounts Epic ground mounts Swift mounts have been available since Patch 1.4, making pre 1.4 mounts no longer purchasable. Pre 1.4 mounts have rare epic mount styles but different colors. Players with old epic mounts can exchange their mount for the newer mounts but since old epic mounts can no longer be purchased, people keep their old epic mount as a novelty. TCG Mounts Some mounts are available through the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "loot cards". There is only one card for the and ; it unlocks the purchase of these mounts through Landro Longshot in Booty Bay. } through Loot card Unlocked Purchase from Landro Longshot for through Loot card | None Apprentice (75) Journeyman (150) |} Legendary ground mounts Flying mounts Holiday mounts Mount speed There are four methods for increasing your mounted speed which are available to all players: * Enchant Gloves - Riding Skill: +2%, world drop Enchanting recipe * Carrot on a Stick: +3%, reward from the Gahz'rilla quest in Zul'Farrak * Mithril Spurs: +4%, world drop Blacksmithing plans There is also a Leatherworking pattern which will enable players to craft a trinket called: * : +10% Also, as of patch 2.1, another way to increase a player's mounted speed is available to players at Honored with Netherwing through a series of quests. * : +10% These two items effectively increase a mount's speed by 10%. However, they do not stack with the previously mentioned methods, so they are approximately (see below) a 1% improvement over using the above 3 items combined. All speed improvement items work on both normal, as well as flying mounts (with the exception of npc controlled point-point flight) Totals The first three effects act as percent multipliers of your total mounted speed, stacking with previous multipliers. Thus, if you have spurs but nothing else, your normal mount speed will be increased to about 166.4% ((100% + 60%) * 1.04 = 166.4%). These numbers were obtained experimentally using a position-tracking addon written specifically for this purpose. Using the highest speed-enhancing effect produces a total movement speed of about: * 110% for Riding Turtle — (100%) * (1.1) * 176% for normal land and air mounts — (100% + 60%) * (1.1) * 220% for epic land mounts — (100% + 100%) * (1.1) * 418% for swift gryphons and wyverns — (100% + 280%) * (1.1) * 451% for — (100% + 310%) * (1.1) Additionally, Paladins have a talent called Pursuit of Justice which increases mount speed by 5/10/15% and Hunters have a talent called Animal Handler which increases your mount speed by 4%/8%. The speed bonus from this talent is not believed to stack with the item bonuses above and so presumably operates in a similar manner, increasing the Warhorse's total speed to 166.4%/172.8% and the Charger's to 208%/216%. Paladins also get Crusader Aura in TBC, which increases mount speed for all members in the party by 20%. This spell can be learned at level 62. It does not stack with PoJ. This also affects flying mounts. Total movement speed while using Crusader Aura * 192% for Warhorse/Non-Epic — (160%) * (1.2) * 240% for Charger/Epic — (200%) * (1.2) * 456% for swift gryphons and wyverns — (380%) * (1.2) * 492% for — (410%) * (1.2) Flying mounts in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms Blizzard officials have stated that it would be possible to "rebuild" the existing continents to accommodate for flying mounts, but this would take enormous amounts of time as Kalimdor and the Eastern continents combined are more than four times the size of Outland. Comment from Drysc, a Blizzard representative: 2006, November 13 ''Unfortunately our designers and developers are not a limitless sea of people; there are decisions that have to be made as to where we should appropriately direct the development efforts. It's our feeling that providing new content, new places to explore and progress your character, new races and professions, all equal a very worthwhile expenditure of our resources. We're definitely committed to ensuring parts of the game already developed continue to be refined, but in this case delaying an expansion for a potentially "very long time" just wouldn't make sense, and wouldn't be very fair to our fans and players who would rather keep progressing their character than flying through places they've already been. ''Let's say that we did allow flying mounts in Azeroth and chose to redesign it at some point, it would be no small task. We would need to correct all of the terrain outside of the 'walkable' areas, including building out zones that currently don't exist but through lore are known to exist in those areas. We would also have to rework most outdoor areas as content not intended to be bypassed could be, as well as any possible terrain exploitation potential (ie lots of time testing and refining). We would need to think about what happens when the edge of the map is reached. Since Outland is flat, a bounding wall makes sense, but for a planet that starts to break down. Do players zone in to the other continent while flying or do we make it seamless? If it's seamless we have to rebuild our server architecture, not to mention any further technical issues, etc. etc. While summed up in a sentence or two each of these things would require teams of people working together for a long time to pull off well. ''It really all comes down to making the game fun to play for everyone, and allocating resources and time to do that as efficiently as possible. Right now spending time reworking Azeroth so that flying mounts can simply exist, for some ease of travel and sight seeing, doesn't seem like an appropriate use of our time or efforts. In the future though, who knows? Comment from Nethaera, another Blizzard representative: 2007, February 14 ''As much as people keep trying to convince us we need to do this there are reasons for things being the way they are. For one, Outland was created specifically with flying mounts in mind. From the ground up to the sky, we worked on the technology involved to make this happen. For another, by keeping them a part of Outland, it makes them unique to the new land and relays a sense of 'ooh and ahh' that they aren't commonplace all around Azeroth too. Also, to retro-fit Azeroth to allow for them would take a lot of time and it's time we'd much rather dedicate to moving forward towards new content than trying to rework something. ''Time and resources are two things we are very careful about and as you can see from reading the forums, a lot of people believe we should be doing more with it no matter how much we actually do. We do the best we can to put out fixes and content as quickly as possible but we have a constraint we've put on ourselves as well that if we are going to put something out there, that we should do it well and with Blizzard quality in mind. This is something that will always be at the top of our list to strive for. See also * Riding skill * Transportation category for a detailed list of methods of transportation in WoW. * Mounts category for a list of articles on mounts. * If you want to get a head start, read a Guide for Preparing to Buy a Mount. * Fresh Holly, a way to transform your mount into a reindeer for half an hour References External links * Category:Mounts Category:Game Terms